Study.com Physics 101 Help — Intro to Physics
Kinematics, forces, energy, electrostatics — FMMC covers all 19 chapters.
Study.com Physics 101 Help — Intro to Physics
19 chapters, six of them High difficulty. The math picks up fast — FMMC covers every chapter.
Quick Answer
Physics 101: Intro to Physics (SDCM-0138) is a 3-credit, ACE-recommended Study.com course covering 19 chapters from measurement and vectors through electrostatics and nuclear physics. There are no assignments — grading is 100 points from chapter tests and 200 points from the final exam. All assessments are open-book and unproctored. No prerequisites are required, though the course assumes basic algebra. It satisfies science general education requirements at most institutions.
What Physics 101 Covers
Study.com’s Physics 101 is a standard algebra-based introductory physics course accepted at over 2,000 colleges for lower-division credit. It satisfies general education science requirements and is taken by students in education, business, health sciences, and liberal arts programs who need a science credit without calculus-based physics. The course is broader than most Study.com science courses — 19 content chapters — but the difficulty is concentrated in specific chapters rather than spread evenly throughout.
Each chapter ends with a 15-question chapter test — open-book, up to 3 attempts, highest score counts. Chapter tests account for 100 of the 300 total points. The remaining 200 points come from the 50-question cumulative final exam.
| Chapter | Topics | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Ch 1: Intro to Physics | Units, measurement, scientific notation, significant figures, dimensional analysis | Low |
| Ch 2: Vectors | Vector components, addition, subtraction, magnitude, direction | Medium |
| Ch 3: Kinematics | Displacement, velocity, acceleration, kinematic equations, projectile motion | High |
| Ch 4: Forces | Free body diagrams, friction, normal force, tension, net force | High |
| Ch 5: Gravity | Universal gravitation, gravitational force, orbital motion, weight vs. mass | Medium |
| Ch 6: Newton’s First Law | Inertia, equilibrium, static and kinetic situations | Low |
| Ch 7: Newton’s Second Law | F = ma, net force calculations, acceleration problems, multi-force systems | High |
| Ch 8: Newton’s Third Law | Action-reaction pairs, equal and opposite forces, applications | Low |
| Ch 9: Energy & Work | Work-energy theorem, kinetic and potential energy, conservation of energy, power | High |
| Ch 10: Linear Momentum | Momentum, impulse, conservation of momentum, elastic and inelastic collisions | Medium |
| Ch 11: Rotational Motion | Torque, angular velocity, angular acceleration, rotational kinetic energy | High |
| Ch 12: Waves | Wave properties, frequency, wavelength, period, wave speed, interference | Medium |
| Ch 13: Sound & Light | Speed of sound, Doppler effect, light properties, electromagnetic spectrum | Low |
| Ch 14: Optics | Reflection, refraction, lenses, mirrors, ray diagrams, lens equation | Medium |
| Ch 15: Fluid Dynamics | Pressure, buoyancy, Archimedes’ principle, Bernoulli’s equation, fluid flow | Medium |
| Ch 16: Thermodynamics | Temperature, heat transfer, laws of thermodynamics, heat engines | Medium |
| Ch 17: Electrostatics | Coulomb’s law, electric fields, electric potential, capacitance | High |
| Ch 18: Magnetism | Magnetic fields, magnetic force on charges and currents, electromagnetic induction | Medium |
| Ch 19: Nuclear Physics | Radioactive decay, nuclear reactions, fission, fusion, half-life | Low |
Where Students Get Stuck
Physics 101’s breadth is deceptive. With 19 chapters, students sometimes assume each chapter is light. It is not. The early chapters — units, Newton’s First and Third Laws, Sound and Light, Nuclear Physics — are genuinely accessible, but the six High-difficulty chapters fail students at the setup stage, not the arithmetic stage. The wrong answer is almost never a calculation error — it is a wrong diagram, wrong energy accounting, or wrong identification of which forces are present.
Chapter 3 (Kinematics) is where the course first requires sustained algebra. Projectile motion problems require decomposing motion into horizontal and vertical components, applying kinematic equations to each independently, and combining results — a multi-step process where an error at any step produces a wrong answer. Students who understand the concept but skip the component-decomposition step consistently fail the chapter test.
Chapter 4 (Forces) and Chapter 7 (Newton’s Second Law) form the mechanical core of the course and the biggest obstacle for most students. Drawing a correct free body diagram — identifying every force acting on an object and its direction — is a skill that does not come from watching. Once the diagram is wrong, the F = ma calculation is wrong, and students often do not realize the error is in the diagram rather than the arithmetic. These two chapters account for the largest share of points lost on the final exam.
Chapter 9 (Energy and Work) introduces conservation of energy, which requires students to account for all energy forms in a system — kinetic, potential, and work done by friction — simultaneously. Students who try to use kinematic equations here instead of energy conservation typically arrive at wrong answers and do not understand why.
Chapter 11 (Rotational Motion) requires translating everything learned about linear motion — force, velocity, mass — into angular equivalents: torque, angular velocity, moment of inertia. Students who passed Chapters 4 and 7 by following the F = ma procedure without fully understanding it find that rotational problems do not follow the same surface pattern and the procedure breaks down.
Chapter 17 (Electrostatics) introduces an entirely new physical domain with a specific failure mode: signed charges. Coulomb’s law and electric field problems require vector addition where force direction depends on charge sign — positive and negative charges produce forces in opposite directions. Students who do not track signs carefully through the vector arithmetic consistently arrive at wrong magnitudes and directions on the final.
The grading math: six High-difficulty chapters out of nineteen. Average 55% on those six and 90% on the remaining thirteen — your chapter test average is 79 out of 100, and you need 131 out of 200 on the final to pass. That is 65.5% on a 50-question cumulative exam — achievable, but only if free body diagram and energy conservation problems are solid going in.
How FMMC Helps with Physics 101
Physics is one of FMMC’s supported science subjects alongside chemistry and statistics. We cover Physics 101 on Study.com and equivalent introductory physics courses through our physics help service.
Chapter Test Support
Expert guidance through all six High-difficulty chapters before using your attempts — kinematics, forces, Newton’s Second Law, energy, rotational motion, and electrostatics.
Final Exam Preparation
Targeted review of free body diagrams, energy conservation, and electrostatics — the three problem types that appear most heavily on the cumulative final.
Full Course Completion
FMMC handles all 19 chapter tests and final exam prep. With 13 accessible chapters, most students finish well within one billing cycle.
Frequently Asked Questions
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